Coming back
by bhut
Summary: S6 spoilers. Just how will Phil Coulson come back?


**Coming back**

 _Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel™ and etc._

The discussion started something like this:

"Phil," Melinda asked her special someone, for the lack of a better term. "I saw you die right before my eyes, right there and then. How exactly did you come back?"

Phil looked very hard at Melinda and tried to think of a right answer.

 _Flashback!_

When Coulson collapsed, for a minute he thought that he was back on Maveth, and that had been a long time ago, but he was wrong. The sand of the desolate scene was different, the smells were different, and the neighbouring cliffs, (in relation to him), were also different. Verily, wherever he had ended up at after seeing Melinda's face dissolve into light, this was not Maveth, though the similarities were there as well.

"Now how did I get here?" Coulson mused as he got onto his feet and looked around. To be more precise, he _turned_ around and saw that he was _facing_ a small crowd instead. To make things worse, the man in the front was Grant Douglas Ward, gone and unlamented, (mostly), eyeing him…in a very bad way. Hostile, basically, but Coulson had to admit that after having killed off AIDA using Ghost Rider's powers, even mere hostility was already bad.

Agent 33 aka Kara Palamas was standing right behind Ward; for some reason, Coulson thought that they were holding hands…actually, it seemed as if the entire crowd was holding hands as it was facing him.

"Hello," he said brightly, doing his best to be, well, himself. "Ward, is it you?"

Ward gave the older man another distinctively hostile look and yelled aloud instead:

"Tripp!"

"Yeah?" Antoine Tripplet, another one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s former agents, spoke from behind Coulson. "I thought that you wouldn't call-"

"What is Coulson doing here? I thought that Thanos' cosmic snap-"

"He and the others have dodged it going to the future – not my doing," the other man hurriedly said – clearly, whatever it was that was going on between him and Ward, it was not good. "Coulson died from natural causes – for a S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, anyhow – his time is up-"

"So what is he doing _precisely here_ , then, in Limbo?"

"I don't know," Tripp snapped. "Fury's doing, maybe?"

"Can't you call him?"

"These days I'm an angel of the Lord, not an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.," Tripp didn't back down, causing Coulson to blink in confusion: say what?

"Can't you call-"

"Yes, well, because, in part, of you, as well as of other reasons, neither is probably too impressed with my work right now, you know-"

Ward just stared – hopefully at him, because he had stared just past Coulson, and his half-lidded gaze was heavy, and in an oddly disturbing way as well. Maybe because the last time Coulson did see him it was in the Framework, where the two of them worked along reasonably well, with no past baggage on their shoulders. Right now, though, (and right here, though wherever's 'here' was, Coulson still was not entirely certain), this did not appear to be the case at all.

"Tripp," Grant's voice sounded oddly weary now, "Coulson. Turn around, would you?"

Instinctively, Coulson did…and saw a doorway that was full of welcoming light, or perhaps it was a gateway instead. He was not sure.

"Tripp, take his hand, would you?" Grant continued to speak. "You're returning with us – both of you."

Coulson blinked and instinctively grabbed someone's hand – maybe Tripp's, or maybe it was someone else's. That was a good thing too, as in the next moment someone kicked him hard through the doorway, and then there was light…

 _Flash forward!_

"I, uh, have no idea as to who I am, what this place is, and just who are you?" Coulson decided to go for the option B instead; as Melinda's eyes narrowed, he realized that he said a wrong thing.

"Phil," Melinda began, but Coulson's survival instincts kicked in and he fled, followed closely by Melinda, who was promising to kill him _again_.

"…See, I told you that they'll have no problems," commented Tripp, as he stood alongside Mack and Daisy, (and the new agent, Deke, who was giving him odd looks).

"Aha," Daisy muttered, as she took a call of her own. "Mack, I need to go right now and talk to some people. Tripp, you are coming with me. Deke, you too."

"Is she always that bossy, 'cause you're the director, technically," Tripp asked the other man.

Mack just groaned.

The end


End file.
